How High?? (does a tower need to be off the floor)

I have a 21' i/o and i bought a tower at teh end of last season (very cheap) off a Malibu--now im trying to adapt it to fit my boat. The main question--how high does it need to be over the deck? Im 6' tall, so it needs to be at least that. I think we're limited on how much we can go by the length of teh towr mounts.

Also, i was thinking of mounting a 3/16" thick steel plate as a backing for the mounts, and fiberglassing it in. any ideas??

My Malibu VLX has a Skylon Swoop tower that is about 6' 8" off the deck.

Though, I'm not recommending this: My Malibu has no backing plates for the tower. Just 3 fender washers.

It does have 1/4" of rubber between the tower feet and the hull. The feet are 3.5" x 6"

Anyway - not much help, just some approximate facts.

(Message edited by yosquire on May 22, 2006)

I would use the backing plate. Especially if your I/O is a "cheapy." The hull is much thinner than the wake boats. They have more glass, hence stronger, and don't need the extra support. The less expensive company's save money, by making the hulls even thinner than normal.

There is no minimum. Any lift off the normal tow hitch pull point will improve your riding. Depending on how high it actually sits, you may crack your head on occasion, or you may have to put the speakers on top of the tower. .. No big deal.

Too high and the boat will rock side-to-side when the skier cuts out, which changes the direction of the boat and makes the two wakes uneven. Especially in boats that don't have the center fins under them. Really frustrating. Back when I was cheap (...oh wait - let me start again...) Because I'm cheap, I had a home built pylon on an old I/O and had this problem.

Should i just bend the aluminum by heating it up with a torch you think and bending it by hand?

Never bent aluminum. But am going to soon, so let us know what you come up with!

don't heat the alum. for two reasons 1. You will brake it because Alum. dosn't change colors when it gets hot like steel so you will blow right through it. 2. if you don't burn it up heating it you will take the strength out of it and it will break later.

AL

its not bending it a whole lot, i jsut need to bend it a little more from where it is already bent. What else could i do?

James,
I built a tower out of Aluminum for my old I/O and to bend it you need to have someone with a mandral bender do this. If you heat it the metal will loose its temper (strength) and you could also crack it. I found a metal bender who bent my for 150.00 with the drawings I had at the time, but it took like three months for him to do in between other work. Here is a picture of it.

That is a great looking tower. You did great work. I am building one now and I know what you mean about waiting on people to get stuff done for you. I have been waiting 3 weeks to finish mine up.

Jon, good luck and post pics after your done. i will say if I ever had to do it again I would just buy one.

Wakeboardin-

Was it $150 total or for jsut teh bends? What type of aluminum did you use? Reason i ask, is i could probabyl sell teh tower for $500, and use that money to get one made for the boat more like yours. Honestly, i do not like the way the tower is currently and would prefer one more like yours. Do you have any of the drawings on the computer you could send me? How stiff is the tower? What do you use as a backing plate? Thank you, looks great.

James
I built my tower also I used 6061 t6 aluminum I used an electric conduit bender worked great but no where near the job of a mandril bender I am with "wakebordin" next time I'll just buy one
Jay

I don't know what if I would do it again or not. I have really enjoyed building it other than the timing part of it. It is not saving very much money at all but it is something that i can say I built and that is cool to me.

I like these kinds of projects. Had an old timer tell me one time:

Anyone can finance a new one but not every one can drive an old one. I think it is cool to have something that is one-off, even if it is not perfect.

Sorry for the rant.
I will post pics when I am done.